Female 30s, Rhinoplasty - Was This a Good Idea?? - Glendale, CA

Background:
I am a healthy 35 year old woman who hadn't been particularly beauty-conscious for the past 30 years. I am tall, thin and an attractive woman, so I got by on doing the bare minimum for beauty routine. Something clicked in me as I was approaching 35 to start taking more care in my appearance. I worked on the skin, the eyebrows, the hair, the makeup, but as I inspected my face, my small, insecure 13 year old voice telling me that my nose was out of place for my face started becoming louder. I did some research and found Dr. Grigoryants and decided this was the right thing to do. I called and made an appt for a consult (I called in Feb and the consult was at the end of May). I was so busy with work and life that I did't give much extra thought to it prior to the consult, thinking, "well, it's just a consult and I'll have time to mull it over afterwards."

Consult date:
My husband and I went to see Dr. G. I loved his quiet confidence and approachability. He does not put on airs. He looked at me first head on and didn't have much to say. Some imbalances in symmetry -- a good side and a bad side (I wasn't aware of it). I turned my head to show my profile and he saw that I had a strong profile with a bump and a hook as I smiled. He quickly went over what he thought. I had pictures on my phone to show him, but the conversation was so verbal and he never asked what I thought. From what we said, I thought we were on the same page, but at this point, here's where I feel I made my first mistake:
ADVICE #1: BRING A COLLAGE OF PRINTED PHOTOS to show him what you want done. I verbally expressed that I liked the length of my nose from the front and I verbally expressed that I didn't want anything too upturned in a tip. I wanted the tip slightly narrowed and I wanted the profile hump improved. He added the part about my smile bringing my tip into a curve, which I agreed needed to be fixed. He just repeated several times, "You will have good results. You should do this." At this consult he also determined that I had a deviated septum and I told him that I suffered from allergies as well, so I think a turbinate reduction might have also been included. Note: my husband brought up medical insurance and he said that we could try to get it partially covered, but first you need to be on meds for 6 weeks (to address the issues to make sure it can't be resolved through meds alone - surgery is a 'last resort') and that his practice doesn't accept HMOs only PPOs. We have an HMO, so it wasn't worth trying that route. Might be helpful to others though. Price $9500 and he said, 'we're booking into January 2016 right now, but i have a cancellation that just opened and I'd like to offer it to you.' Low and behold it was 2 weeks away, 6/15. I feel the universe called my bluff and I took it. I was in such a hurry to get the bloodwork, get the pre-op appt scheduled, and the money paid (thankfully I had the money saved up, so we were good to go there!), that I still hadn't had time to fully process (and I'm a full time employee with two young children to boot!).

Pre-op - I came up 2 weeks later, the appt was on a Saturday. I drove into LA alone (I live about 2.5 hours away). In the days leading up to the appointment, I started having a fear of dying. Like I said, I am not a vain person, but I am very spiritual. I started fearing that God would use this character weakness as a means to teach a lesson to others about vanity and that I would die on the operating room table. I also have very low blood pressure and started reading about how dangerous that can be in OR situations. I started listening to Joseph Clough's self-hypnosis app on pre-surgery jitters ($2.99 on iTunes) and it really helped. I fell asleep to it each night before the surgery. My fears of dying also dissipated after talking to Dr. G at the pre-op who said that low blood pressure is good and will help reduce the chance of bleeding out during surgery.

Day of -
My husband and MIL came up for the surgery with me at the center in Tarzana. Others have done such a nice job on retelling this, so I'll be brief.
- you'll possibly wait a long time, so bring something to ease your mind. I brought my iPhone and listened to Joseph Clough's pre-surgery app. Again, it really helped.
- Nurses were nice and helpful
- Not a lot of privacy from other patients as you're waiting in the pre-surgery area. Just a row of beds with thin curtains between. If privacy is an issue, let them know. You could totally hear what others were saying and I'm sure others could hear my conversations with the staff as well.
- They'll put an IV line in while you wait. I got a second blanket because I got cold.
- The anesthesiologist was good, but had a unique personality with jokes that just didn't vibe right before this whole thing. Dr. G. told me he thought very highly of the anesthesiologist, so I kept telling myself that. I have experienced nausea after general anesthesia and I let him know. He said he'd make me an anti-nausea cocktail, which I think was true, because I felt no nausea.
I walked into the OR myself and they started the IV line with the anesthesia, but also gave me a few puffs of gas. I was shivering like a wet cat and there was a heater under my blanket to warm me up. I conked out and that was all.

Waking Up: my husband was with me and they were trying to rouse me from surgery. I didn't really want to wake up. It had been a good nap :) They gave me some juice and wheeled me out to the car. We drove 2.5-3 hours home. I slept most of the way. I should have been icing my face, but i was so tired!
ADVICE #2: ICE YOUR FACE NON-STOP the first 48 hours (and by non-stop I mean take breaks as advised, but get back on it!)
Day 2-3: I thought I looked bad when I got home, but I looked horrible on Days 2-3. My eyes started swelling shut. This whole time I was worried about bruising and it was swelling that I should have worried about. My mom had a rhinoplasty in the early 90s when I was a young girl and I remember seeing her afterwards and being traumatized by her bruises....but no, swelling's the [RS bleep]. I started taking arnica and bromeliad after the surgery as well as the topical arnica. But then realized that I had never taken it before and thought that maybe the swelling was partially an allergic reaction so I stopped both of those...My advice:
#3: TAKE ARNICA AND BROMELIAD BEFORE SURGERY if for no other reason to make sure you don't react to it negatively.
My mom helped me off and on for these days. Kids were gone the whole week with grandparents. My older daughter is sensitive to body image issues and I really didn't want her knowing what was happening. Plus they both would have been traumatized seeing mommy in this state.

Days 4-5:
Swelling dropped to my 'jowls'. I say that loosely because I've never had jowls. I have a very thin face and this puffed me up like crazy. I was scared to look at the nose under the drip pad, but after day 4 I looked at it and boy was it piggish! Then I no longer feared dying but feared looking like a pig for the rest of my life.
Day 5 - Got the cast off. Drove up on Saturday with my husband. I thought that when he took it off, my nose would all be cleaned out and I could get some air through. No such luck. One nostril is still completely blocked and the other has a tiny hole of air passing through, but I'm still breathing through the mouth. My ear pressure and back of the throat pressure are gone, though. I genuinely believe that having allergies has impacted me negatively with swelling. He said no claritin leading up to the surgery, but I wonder if I should have started taking it the next day. I mean, if my body was still producing all those fluids, they'd have to go somewhere -- and somewhere they did!

I didn't cry when he took off the cast and I'm trying to have faith, but I look RIDICULOUS. My nose is very short and upturned, lips are swollen so the space between them looks long (seriously imagine manually holding your nose tip up. that's what I look like!) my cheeks/jowls are huge and the space between my eyes and my inner eye are completely swollen, so I look like an actual pig. Real human pig. Again, I had a long, thin face before. I am long and thin everywhere and now I have these horribly round, swollen features.
Not advice, but an FYI:
I thought bruises were my biggest concern and I was not mentally prepared to be swollen into a different person. Bruises are NBD - easily covered with makeup. This swelling cannot be covered with makeup.

Day 6 (today):
I woke up still swollen everywhere - no better than yesterday. I'm doing everything I can - sleeping upright, taking antihistamines, using arnica/bromelain, cleaning out my nose like crazy, eating well, drinking water. I emailed the doctor about using a neti pot as I am convinced that if I can get the allergies cleaned out then this might subside. At this point, I 100% regret this decision. I had no issue with the way I looked head on. I hated my profile. I now hate everything about the way my face looks. I understand this is a process, so I will update and will not make my final judgment quite yet, but no, this is not good. :(